Intel's engineer complains that Apple is more concerned about making its products pretty than fixing their overheating problems.

What can Intel do to stop companies like Apple from selling overheating designs? "Nothing", presenter says.

In the quick IDF 2011 notes category, we wanted to share a humorous exchange we had with an Intel Corp. (INTC) engineer. Joshua Linden-Levy is a "Mechanical Pathfinding Engineer" at Intel and delivered a terrific presentation on cooling in Oak Trail, the Intel Atom platform that replaces Pine Trail.

In the presentation Mr. Linden-Levy discussed how the target temperature for laptops was 58 Celsius, according to industry standards. Given the high temperatures long suffered by various editions of Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) MacBook Pros, we wanted to ask him how Intel plans to keep its partners (like Apple) from violating the proposed thermal guidelines on Oak Trail and its other product lines (Apple is unlikely to use Oak Trail, but typically uses other Intel's mainstream notebook and desktop processor lines in its models).

During the Q&A session Mr. Linden-Levy acknowledged hearing about Apple's laptop thermal issues. What can Intel do prevent partners from committing such thermal botch jobs? "Nothing," says Mr. Linden-Levy, "[the manufacturer will] just get a bad reputation among consumers."

As we discussed the issue further he added, "Well as you know, with Apple their chief priority is always form and looks -- everything else, including cooling design is an afterthought."

We found the presenter's informed, earnest unscripted dialogue about one of his company's largest partners refreshing.

To be fair, less pricey models from Sony Corp. (TYO:6758) and Dell, Inc. (DELL) have suffered from similar issues [1][2]. Unlike these companies, though, Apple often refuses to recall or fully patch its faulty products.

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quote: Isn't it strange that despite all these millions of overheating computers that Apple are replacing, and they replacing the replacements as the problem is a design flaw, the company still struggles on...

Perhaps that explains the actions of Windows PC buyers, but how does that explain the behavior of Apple buyers?

My experience is that Mac buyers tend to be the least forgiving owners. There were certainly a lot of complaints about the faulty NVIDIA chipsets in MacBook Pros a few years ago, as well as a lot of complaints about heat output.

The issue with Apple is that they are always pushing the design envelope. By this I don't mean the CPU or GPU, but the physical design (e.g. the unibody aluminum). It's a major part of the company's philosophy. In the same way that Frank Lloyd Wright's houses had leaky roofs, Apple's MacBook Air and Pro lines have struggled with heat dissipation. They seem to have gotten the formula right in 2011, at least with the MacBook Air. However, it's pretty clear that they think Intel should be part of the solution by delivering more powerful ULV chips. I agree with that. Clearly consumers want thinner, lighter notebooks with better battery life.

That's why the G4 Cube was such a smashing success, and why the $10,000 20th Anniversary Mac sold like hotcakes. Oh, wait a minute...

Windows does offer a choice of hardware (even Macs, for that matter). However, that's not to say that there aren't advantages of Macs. The MacBook Air is very competitively priced, as evidenced by the struggles of competing manufacturers to significantly undercut Apple's pricing with comparable technology (companies like Acer are relying on Core i3s or HDD/SSD hybrids to undercut the $999 MacBook Air price).